


are you here with me?

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Anakin's fall, Angst, Depression, F/M, Platonic friendships, Pregnancy, Regrets, Songfic, also yeah obiwan has two dads, i believe in it, ok basically its just a hodge podge of obi-wans regrets in life, ok cool we cool, platonic, songfic: on melancholy hill, thats abt it, timeline is WAYYYYYY off but its on purpose, yes korkie is their kid, you hear that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 01:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15741516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Obi-Wan had regrets. So many, in fact, he could barely breathe at night.SONGFIC to On Melancholy Hill by Gorillaz





	are you here with me?

_up on melancholy hill, there’s a plastic tree_

Master Qui-Gon Jinn tended to not only teach Obi-Wan the importance of mental solidity and ways to wield a blade. He taught Obi-Wan that some of the things the Order said were to be taken with a grain of salt, that sometimes orders needed to be broken, and that as selfish as it seemed, he could do small things for himself. If he wasn’t his best self, then how could Obi-Wan serve the galaxy?

While his logic seemed fragmented and flawed, the Padawan wanted to appease his master, so he took a day from his training to do something he actually wanted. Coruscant wasn’t a place that was known inherently for beauty or nature, the towering buildings hanging far above whatever toxin-ridden wasteland lie below, but Obi-Wan had heard rumors of a place. Near the senate tower, artificial wildlife formed a small park that one could sit in and do their work.

Obi-Wan thought that this was a fine compromise, burying himself in his studies among plastic flowers and trees.

_are you here with me, just looking out on the day of another dream?_

There were a lot of things that Obi-Wan hadn’t gotten used to on Mandalore. Being on the run was one of them, protecting someone other than himself for an extended period of time was another; and hiding something from his Master was the largest.

Satine was becoming all the young man could think about. She was stunning, a year older than him and wiser than he thinks he’ll ever be. Sometimes, when they’re trapped between a rock and a hard space trying to catch sleep while his Master watches the entryway to whatever abandoned warehouse they’re stuck in, her hand grazes against him, and they fall asleep like that. Serine. 

Obi-Wan isn’t one to tell lies. If she had said the word, he would have dropped his lightsaber and stayed with her on Mandalore, loved her with every ounce of dedication he gave to the Order. She insisted his duty came first.

Still, he dreamt. The Force showed him cruel images of a life unlived, from the time he was just starting to fill in his robes to when he died in them. Among the things he saw at night, the betrayals and lies and pain, the birth of their firstborn would always be the image he tried to erase. He wanted nothing more than a family, a life like a man unbound to the Galaxy, but that wouldn’t be for him. When it came to be that she actually was pregnant, Obi-Wan did what he always did on Mandalore.

He ran. He was a fully grown man, but he ran, and Satine had to pass off her only heir to avoid the embarrassment and save Obi-Wan from the Council’s wrath. She never regretted the things she did for him, but he would always hate himself for it.

Korkie seemed like a wonderful boy. Not Force-sensitive. That’s all he could dare to hope for.

_well you can't get what you want, but you can get me_

Raising Anakin was a substitute. A lovely escape from the mourning of a woman he loved and a Master he had lost.

Throughout Anakin’s adolescence, they shared quarters, because the other Padawans were incessantly cruel to the boy and Obi-Wan wanted to save him that trauma. Anakin already had a problem controlling his emotions, he didn’t need the extra wounds that Mind Healers may not be able to stitch back together. This, however, meant there was very little separation between teacher and parent.

Anakin was his responsibility. He was not the Council’s ward. He was not only the Chosen One, but Obi-Wan raised him like kin. Taking the role of father felt wrong because even though Anakin had never had a father, Obi-Wan would like to leave that role to Master Jinn. And as Jinn had raised Obi-Wan, he could think of it no other way then that Anakin was his brother. A boy he would teach everything he knew, cultivate, and help no matter what.

Of course, the attachment is forbidden, so Obi-Wan kept all these sentiments behind layers and layers of mental conditioning. But while Anakin was a child, Obi-Wan cared for him like a parent.

When Anakin woke up, Obi-Wan was the one who brushed his hair, checked his braid, made him breakfast and tea, meditated with him.

Obi-Wan was the one to ruffle his hair and praise him for his good work crafting his saber. For doing a good job in training.

Obi-Wan was the one to bandage him up when things went wrong.

_so let's set out to sea_

There’s a short list of tragedies that haunt Obi-Wan until he dies.

Watching Qui-Gon die in his arms, helpless. After failing him by lashing out in anger.  
Satine, dying similarly in his arms, to the same man. At this point, thinking about it, he couldn’t breathe.  
Watching the boy he raised with such care writhe in the fire, licked by flames as his screams reverberated inside Obi-Wan’s skull. He wasn’t even sure which part he regretted more. Letting it get to this point, or not killing his brother where he stood.

 

 _cause you are my medicine when you're close to me_

When Anakin was twelve, he had nightmares so badly that he would wake up screaming nearly every single night. Obi-Wan would always leap to his feet and run into the room, crawling into bed with the boy and rocking him to sleep.

It wasn’t until Anakin was a knight, having to soothe Ahsoka the same way, that Obi-Wan decided to tell Anakin of his own childhood demons.

Anakin’s dreams were always of vibrant hot colors, dryness he could feel down to his bones. He was consumed by the colors, dried out like his shirts in the sun as a boy. He saw his mother, he saw Padme, and once in a blue moon, he would see his master, dead to the blade of a Sith he’d read about during lessons.

Obi-Wan’s were more direct and to the point. He saw a family, but not always the one he could have had on Mandalore; he saw two men, standing above him, cradling their baby son. He saw himself going to school. Not the Temple, no, the Academy on Stewjon. He saw himself graduating, owning a small shop, and negotiating deals with the locals. He saw a life where he never went off-planet, and it haunted him.

He saw terrible images described to him in books. He saw his Master dying in various fashions. He saw Satine, being ripped from his grasp out of an airlock. 

He had never seen the point in telling Anakin. But the only thing that ever helped him, or that he could do to help Ani, was the cradling of a mind around another. Delicately, it was soothing, but in the ways of the Force, something can’t just be deleted. It must be equaled. So the pain was always transferred.

Obi-Wan feels no guilt for taking on Anakin’s pain.

_so call in the submarines, 'round the world we’ll go_

Anakin wanted to take a trip.

Sure, it wasn’t conventional, but sometimes it was difficult to take the boy anywhere, and he wanted to go back to Naboo. See what he hadn’t been able to before.

So, like the brother he tried his best to be, Obi-Wan took Anakin on his trip, to see the wonderful oceans the desert boy couldn’t fathom. While possessions weren’t looked on very affectionately by the Order, and Obi-Wan was sure to be punished if anybody knew, he still kept a photo of Anakin and himself in front of rows and rows of kelp. Anakin had looked out that window, meditating, for hours.

_does anybody know her?_

Satine held herself in a way comparable to no other. Her hands flew furiously as she spoke before the Mandalorian High Council, begging her case for peace. Obi-Wan had to hold his tongue to keep from snapping, lashing out when they came back at her that she was too young… or objectively, too female.

That night, she cried into Obi-Wan’s chest, and Obi-Wan could only hold her. What was he to do? He was a warrior. She… pleasantly ignored that fact, most of the time, but that doesn’t erase the weight on his belt.

When she says she's going to miss him, he may have cried too.

_up on melancholy hill_

There weren’t many things that Obi-Wan… well, Ben, enjoyed about the dunes of Tatooine. Perhaps it was the truest form of irony. Obi-Wan Kenobi was a dead man, slain by his most trusted friend, and his corpse was living on the planet that man once (still? He pretends not to know the notions of Vader) hated more than any other in the Galaxy.

The Force had led him many places around this desolate landscape. The resting place of Shmi Skywalker. The shop in which Anakin was once enslaved. But when his thoughts wandered to the lingering, weak Force Ghost of his old master, the Force dragged him one place only. 

He dragged his weary bones up the dune, resting quietly upon the sand.

 

_are you here with me?_

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i needed a break from obi-wan angst with obi-wan angst


End file.
